District 5 Diary

Monday, July 23, 2012

"Now Lee looks like the bully"

Last Friday an important, although long overdue, victory was realized when the vile stay-away order was finally lifted and Sheriff Mirkarimi and his wife, Eliana Lopez, were reunited.

Although she had to return to Venezuela that same evening, it was a fruitful trip she made to the U.S. Thanks to the support of Comite de Padres Unidos, the generous listeners of KIQI's Hecho en California, and various individuals, Eliana returned to San Francisco to once and for all denounce the persecution of her husband by testifying as to the truth of what occurred. She made it crystal clear that the city has no case to even consider removing Sheriff Mirkarimi from office. Her testimony was compelling.

Then, before she left Friday, the couple returned to Judge Wong's court, and the restraining order was lifted!

Please mark your calendars for Thursday August 16th at 9 a.m., CIty Hall, for the final Ethics Commission hearing. There should be public testimony that day.

The longer this seemingly endless process continues, the worse Mayor Lee and the City Attorney look. It's grotesque that the Ethics Commission won't convene again on the case until August 16 and that the process apparently won't be over until October! This is process run amok and has nothing to do with justice.

Debra Saunders gets it right on this, like she does on high-speed rail. It evidently takes a conservative to tell our one-party city the simple truth on important issues:

Mirkarimi was a bully for one afternoon; San Francisco officials have been the bullies ever since...It was a waste of time and an abuse of power that proved only one thing: Sometimes when a man sets out to destroy another's reputation, he ends up staining his own brand. Now Lee looks like the bully. If he believed the bruise was cause for firing, then he should have stuck with the case he could prove. Instead, the mayor peddled a cover-up scenario that City Hall attorneys, despite their best efforts, could not prove. What could have been a clean inquiry, Lee made dirty.